Larry McMurtry

From astronauts to outlaws, tender cowboys to tough showgirls, Larry McMurtry has given readers some of the most memorable characters in contemporary fiction and, with the film adaptation of many of his works, characters whose screen personas have become icons of the American cinema. Who could forget a young Paul Newman in Hud, based upon McMurtry’s early classic, Horseman, Pass By; or an even younger Cybill Shepherd as Jacy in The Last Picture Show; or the enduring performances of Debra Winger and Shirley Maclaine in Terms of Endearment?

As prolific as he is versatile, McMurtry’s work encompasses more than two dozen novels, two essay collections, three memoirs, and 30-plus screenplays, in a career that spans some 40 years and has garnered several of literature’s most prestigious awards, including the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for Lonesome Dove. Predominantly set in the American Southwest, McMurtry’s novels are as much about the place as about the people who live there. Harsh, rugged landscapes depicted in lyrical prose emblematically balance the hapless, roguish heroes and villains McMurtry frequently lampoons with loving, often laughable, fondness.

Readers who fall in love with a McMurtry novel and find themselves wanting more are in luck, for McMurtry is a champion of the sequel and even prequel form of novelization. The success of Lonesome Dove was followed by Streets of Laredo, Deadman’s Walk, and Comanche Moon. The Last Picture Show spawned Texasville and Duane’s Depressed; Terms of Endearment continued into The Evening Star. And, most recently, McMurtry has created The “Berrybender Narratives,” a Western saga of epic proportions that includes Sin Killer, The Wandering Hill, and By Sorrow’s River.

The son, grandson and nephew of the very Texas cattlemen of whom he so frequently writes, McMurtry was born in Wichita Falls, Texas, in 1936. Educated at North Texas State College (B.A., 1958) and Rice University (M.A., 1960), McMurtry was the Stegner Fellow at Stanford University from 1960 to 1961, and has taught at Texas Christian University, Rice University, George Mason College (Fairfax, VA) and American University (Washington, DC). His love of books extends beyond writing fiction. A regular contributor of book reviews to both the Houston Post and Washington Post, since 1971, McMurtry has been the owner of Booked Up, Inc., an eclectic, antiquarian bookseller with stores in Archer, TX; Washington, DC; and Tuscson, AZ.

Novels

Horseman, Pass By (1961) *
Leaving Cheyenne (1963) *
The Last Picture Show (1966)
Moving On (1970)
All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers (1972) **
Terms of Endearment (1975) **
Somebody’s Darling (1978) *
Cadillac Jack (1982)
The Desert Rose (1985)
Lonesome Dove (1985) **
Texasville (1987) **, LP
Anything for Billy (1988) LP
Some Can Whistle (1989) **, LP
Buffalo Girls (1990) **, LP
The Evening Star (1992) **, LP
Pretty Boy Floyd with Diana Ossana (1994)
Streets of Laredo (1995) **, LP
The Late Child (1995) LP
Dead Man’s Walk (1996) **, LP
Comanche Moon (1997) LP
Zeke and Ned with Diana Ossana (1997) **, LP
Duane’s Depressed (1999)
Boone’s Lick (2000) **, LP
Sin Killer (2002) **, ***, LP
The Wandering Hill (2003) **, ***, LP
By Sorrow’s River (2003)

Other Published Works

In a Narrow Grave: Essays on Texas *
It’s Always We Rambled: An Essay on Rodeo *
Film Flam: Essays on Hollywood *
Crazy Horse: A Biography (B Crazy Horse)
Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen (813.54 MCM)
Roads: Driving America’s Great Highways (917.3 MCM)
Paradise (813.54 MCM)
Sacagawea’s Nickname: Essays on the American West (978.02 MCM)

Movies Based on Novels

Hud (based on Horseman, Pass By)
The Last Picture Show
Lonesome Dove
Return to Lonesome Dove
Terms of Endearment
Texasville *
The Evening Star

* Please request at the Adult Information Services Desk
** Also available as a cassette audio book
*** Also available as a CD audio book
LP Also available in LARGE PRINT